Senegal Expects Record Rice Crop in Drive to Meet Local Demand

By Drew Hinshaw -
Jan 31, 2011

Senegal’s rice crop will probably
exceed last year’s record harvest and meet at least 60 percent
of domestic consumption needs, helping the country reach self
sufficiency by 2015, a government official said.

Production was 350,000 metric tons in 2010, the most the
former French colony has reaped in a single calendar year, said
Salif Diack, rice program officer in the state-run Society for
the Development and Exploitation of Land in the Senegal River
Valley. The West African nation is “expected to produce more
this year,” Diack said on Jan. 27 in an interview in Dakar, the
capital. He didn’t provide a specific forecast.

Senegal’s government is using funding from the U.S.
Millennium Challenge Account to rehabilitate land in the Senegal
River Valley along its northern border with Mauritania. The
program aims to level and irrigate uncultivated rice paddies and
double the 62,000 hectares (153,205 acres) of currently farmed
land within four years. The country of 12.5 million people
consumes between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of rice annually,
Diack said.

“If we maintain this input in terms of rehabilitating
land, and advising farmers, within three to four years we will
get self sufficiency,” he said. “We’ve got all the conditions
on our side.”

Rice is a staple food in Senegal, Africa’s fourth-biggest
importer of the grain, and an increase in domestic production
over the past two years has reduced imports, which fell 2.1
percent last year to 700,000 tons, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s website. About half of those imports
are exported to other countries in the region, according to the
Agriculture Ministry.

U.S. Aid

In September, the Millennium Challenge Corp., which awards
developmental aid to countries that have improved governance
standards, signed a $540 million grant with the country, $170
million of which will be used to help irrigate and desalinate as
much as 36,500 hectares of land in the valley, according to a
document on the agency’s website.

Rice yields in Senegal, at 6 tons of rice per hectare per
year, are higher than the global average of 4 tons per hectare
per year, Mamour Gaye, a technical adviser in the Agriculture
Ministry, said in August.

The Senegal River Valley accounts for 87 percent of the
country’s rice production, Diack said.

Senegal initiated plans to boost output of the grain after
international food prices rose in 2008 by replacing old
irrigation pumps, digging drainage canals, desalinating land and
offering a 70 percent subsidy for fertilizer.

Rough rice for March delivery fell as much as 0.9 percent
to $14.95 per 100 pounds today, extending yesterday’s 0.7
percent decline, and traded at $15.05 at 11:45 a.m. London time.
The price peaked at $25.07 in April 2008.